Theatre: Mission: improbable

Meet an unlikely bunch with a defiantly risky approach to theatre  and they have another hit on their hands, says Michael Wright

Theatre is a risky business. What if the show isn’t ready in time? What if Hamlet trips? What if the car doesn’t fly? The game of creating an imaginary world onstage night after night, in order to tell a story that is at once fresh and universal, is fraught with difficulties. Even the most finely tuned drawing-room comedy, honed to perfection, can come to grief.

And then there is Improbable Theatre, whose new show, The Hanging Man, transfers from the West Yorkshire Playhouse to London’s Lyric Hammersmith on Wednesday. “Risky” is too soft a word for the rough alloy of spontaneous creativity and calculated gamble that defines this company’s best work. They have been flying by the seat of their pants since 1996. “And we shall continue to take this risk until we are found out,” declare the group’s trio of artistic directors, Phelim McDermott, Lee Simpson and Julian Crouch,